Isabelle Faust/Freiburg Baroque Orchestra

Schumann Violin Concerto, etc

(Harmonia Mundi)

Here is an ultra-special disc. Sometimes an outstanding performance of a masterwork suggests a reassessment of the work is called for. This performance of Schumann's underrated and, indeed, sometimes berated Violin Concerto [it]is[it] the reassessment and refurbishment the concerto still requires. Soloist Isabelle Faust has the magical sensitivity which underlines, without force, the originality of Schumann's conception, with its remarkable and often unnoticed complexity of thematic integration. And Faust's soft-breathed, murmured intimacy of the beautiful slow movement will stop your heart. Conductor Pablo Heras-Casado's light touch, along with the effortlessly articulate and supremely stylish playing of the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, also guarantees a bounce in the often too-weighty performance of the final Polonaise. In what looks certain to be a remarkable three-volume Schumann survey, Faust and her colleagues - pianist Alexander Melnikov and cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras - bring a surging and thrillingly liberated Romantic sweep to their performance of the composer's G minor Piano Trio. This is great series in the making.

Michael Tumelty